/lit/ - Literature

i'm entirely resistant to diagnosing myself with anything so i'm not going to go into depression this adhd that, but i think i have a markedly low attention span and a seriously indolent, avoidant strain in myself; and it's only gotten worse from years and years of half-skimming and clicking around on the computer. ironically, i have 'the shallows' marked on some backlog somewhere.

i've read only 20 or so books in the past 2 or 3 years. even though i have multiple bookshelves full of them. i think of myself as someone who reads, even presenting myself as that, but i can barely get myself off the computer... off the anxious internet donuts... to just sit quietly with a book, a pen and a notepad, and focus. in those brief moments that i do, i feel better than i ever have.

('feeling better' isn't the end i'm looking for, i should say. i'm not reading for happiness or pleasure, but because it brings me outside of myself momentarily. it reshapes me. it's an activity that requires attention and resolve, with joys and insights television and the stupid shit i lazily consume can barely come close to. -- my attention span is so low i can barely sit through movies, of which i've probably watched 4 of in the past year or two; if i'm watching tv i have to be doing something on top of it -- instead of feeling myself decompose and slide out of view like i do when i lie in bed with my laptop on my stomach for 12 hours, i feel myself, still decomposing, recompose and change in relation to the text. there's nothing inert in a book.)

i'm getting better slowly but most of the time i feel that i'll be this weak forever, that it's part of my constitution. that an oven bag and some halcion may be the only way out; some horrid my chemical romance shit that would make my mummy sad. i want to get myself out of this mess, but it seems like the path there is full of snake oil self help on the one side, and gross youtube YA john green tumblr full of pictures of ugly clean desks and faux-victorian book covers with no names fuckery reading fetish shit.

apologies for such a long post tear me to shreds